Monster or liberator, his character was forged in the violent and uncertain times of 15th century Romania
Vlad the Impaler never had much in the way of “good press”. And when Bram Stoker discovered him in the late 19th century, the real Dracula was transformed into something otherworldly and evil: a vampire. I thought it might be fun to return to the real man for my latest novel, The Lost Prince, the second book in my John Hawker series, which is set in the 15th century during the time of the infamous prince. In researching him, I discovered a life that was every bit as fascinating as anything written in fiction.
Born in Transylvania in 1431, Vlad Dracula, son of Vlad Dracul, gained and lost the throne of Wallachia not once but three times during his tempestuous life. Wallachia, a fractious principality of the kingdom of Hungary in what is now Romania, was a geopolitical cauldron for much of its existence. Caught between the rising Ottoman Empire in the southeast and its western overlords in Hungary, Wallachian rulers had to employ skilful diplomacy as well as force of arms just to survive. Dracula’s father had been inducted into the knightly Order of the Dragon in Nuremburg, hence the adoption of Dracul, meaning dragon in the Romanian tongue. Its second translation – devil – would later be employed by Dracula’s detractors and enemies, of which there were many.
Infamous in his lifetime as “The Impaler,” Vlad’s sadistic cruelties were legend. But he was also a liberator of his people, well educated, a lawgiver, and considered abroad to be a champion of Christian Europe in the struggle against the Ottomans. His subsequent demonization as a mass murderer – in his own lifetime – was probably the first example of an organised governmental propaganda campaign.
Although the horrific punishment of impalement had already been in use in the Ottoman world and Eastern Europe before Dracula’s arrival on the scene, Vlad made it his signature as part of his campaign to secure loyalty among the fractious nobility of Wallachia and the ethnic German merchant-class of Transylvania, as well as to intimidate the Turks pressing on the southern and eastern borders of the country. Tales of his mass impalements of rebellious noblemen as well as Ottoman prisoners, were spread by both the Germans and the king of Hungary, Matthias Corvinus, as part of geopolitical manoeuvrings and constituted some of the first mass broadsheet propaganda campaigns in western history. Enabled by Guttenberg’s invention of moveable type, these mass-printed stories – both true and exaggerated – went far and wide across the courts of Europe, earning Vlad notoriety.
Much has been speculated about Dracula’s state of mind given the number and depravity of executions during his reigns, remarkable even for such an age of general cruelty. But Vlad had been brought up in a world where death was frequent, violent, and sudden. His older brother Mircea and his father were both murdered: Mircea being buried alive while Vlad Dracul was assassinated in marshland near Bucharest days later. Vlad Dracula and his younger brother Radu had in boyhood been made hostages at the court of the Ottoman sultan in Istanbul in order to secure the loyalty of their father. There they had witnessed execution and torture. In the Ottoman court, mercy was rarely rewarded and it was common practice for sultans to have siblings strangled to preserve their own hold on power. Dracula, a prince on familiar terms with Sultan Murad and later with Murad’s son Mehmed “the Conqueror,” saw first-hand how survival often depended upon striking first. Dracula’s boyhood years at the imperial court gave him an understanding of Ottoman mentality and the Ottoman way of war. This was knowledge he would exploit in the defence of Wallachia years later.
According to accounts by both enemies and allies, Dracula’s opponents were impaled, boiled alive, flayed, beheaded or disembowelled, with punishment inflicted regardless of gender or age. Dracula’s military campaigns against the Turks were equally bloody, ruthless, and effective. A major counter-offensive by Sultan Mehmed in 1462 drove deep into Wallachia but was halted by a masterful lightning attack by Dracula’s army in the dead of night, sowing confusion and chaos in the very camp of the sultan. Withdrawing northwards in the face of the larger Ottoman force, Dracula employed a scorched earth strategy to deny the Turks forage and water. The final straw for Mehmed was the sight of thousands of impaled Turkish soldiers on the road before the gates of Târgovişte, the Wallachian capital. The so-called “forest of the impaled” comprised Turkish captives earlier killed in battle or executed, their bodies in an advanced state of decomposition in the summer heat, ravaged by crows and magpies. The sultan withdrew his army to the coast to take ships home.
Dracula’s victory was short-lived. The pendulum of great power politics had begun to swing against him. His younger brother Radu had remained loyal to the sultan and now managed to win over loyalties in Wallachia. Vlad Dracula’s independent streak had become a liability as the Hungarians sought peace with the Ottomans to pursue war against Austria. Vlad was betrayed by King Matthias and placed under house arrest for ten years in Buda. But as the geopolitical pendulum in the region swung again, Matthias saw that Dracula might yet have purpose. He was freed, led a new campaign against the Turks in Bosnia, and retook the Wallachian throne in November 1476.
Within weeks, conflicting reports of his death began to leak out to the wider world. Some said he and a small party had been ambushed by Wallachian enemies outside of Bucharest. Others claimed a raid on an Ottoman camp made by Dracula had gone disastrously wrong, leading to him being overwhelmed and killed. A third claimed he had been assassinated by stealth. By the end of January 1477, ten Moldavian soldiers who had been seconded as Dracula’s bodyguard made it home to say they had been overwhelmed by a Turkish force and that Dracula had indeed fallen. His body was never identified and his grave unknown.
Having now written Vlad Dracula into my fiction, I found compelling similarities in his upbringing and later life with England’s Richard III, a contemporary and also a character in my previous novel, Hawker and the King’s Jewel. Both lost father and siblings to violence, both spent childhoods in uncertain and dangerous times never knowing when they themselves might meet violent ends. Double-dealing and treachery by close allies precipitated their downfalls. Both rulers died in combat, were denied respectful burials, and were demonised at the time by the victors as well as afterwards – in print – whether by Thomas More, Shakespeare, or Bram Stoker.
Does a ruler mould their era or does the era mould the ruler? Or is it a bit of both? Although the 15th century was the dawn of the Renaissance, it was still an era of extreme brutality, medieval superstition, and capricious fortune for many, both high and low. For writing historical fiction, it’s a time period that presents great opportunity for delving into the human element and wrestling with issues of morality, ambition, and loyalty. The result is something hopefully that readers will enjoy, but also ponder and reflect upon for relevance in our own time.
